Lost In The Library Of Life: The Snippets Edition

Apologia

Apologies for the scrappy nature of this contribution, but thanks to a mix of illness and work it’s been pieced together at random instances over the last two or three months. A long bout with the summer flu has passed, but it appears to have aggravated my incipient asthma, so I’m trying out a batch of new medicine that hopefully will reduce the persistent coughing that keeps Mary awake at night…

And then Microsoft go and launch a new operating system, which means a lot of extra work in bench-marking it on different PCs and with different hardware set-ups, so that ate a lot of life! And when you count the amount of time you’ve spent on it, and what you’re being paid, you sometimes wonder whether it’s actually worth it…

But I’m back on stream now, and hopefully won’t leave things so long in the future! As an added bonus, I’m enclosing a short piece from Mary to help fill some of the gaps…

Blame it on the poets.

It's a sunny day in Lausanne, and the mountains across Lake Geneva are glowing white in the afternoon sun. Inside the client's offices the air-conditioning takes the edge off the spring heat, but it's still warm. Thank goodness for the fridge full of chilled drinks, including some strange milk based concoction.

I took the train in from Montreux this morning, skimming the lake shore, past each individual diving board and tiny harbour, and the grapevines that cover the mountainside. I'm quite thankful for the travel agent's cock up that put me there, with this half hour of silent travel on the sharp edge between mountain and water. At the station I had to wait for an hour, watching the mist burn off the high slopes to reveal mock gothic chateau and forested peaks, dotted with circling raptors. It's all Byron's fault. Bloody poets, they choose the nicest places to live...

Later that day I walked from Montreux to Chillon, along the lakeside path. The sun was setting over the Jura mountains to the east, and reflecting off the snow covered peaks of the French Alps to the south of the lake. The warm air made the walk very pleasant, and the still clear lake water reflected the sky and the mountains. It’s hard to believe that I’m already over a 1000 feet up, but the clear air and fresh breezes work wonders.

Fame?

My first column hits the streets this month., with the snappy title of "Building Content Negotiated Websites Using Visual InterDev And Active Server Pages". Not really literary at heart, but still rather fun to do, because it means I get all sorts of nice toys from various software manufacturers to play with. I'm now the Internet Development columnist for Application Development Advisor, which means that my copy is also likely to appear in Object Magazine in the States... All rather tedious for the non-techies I'm sure, but it helps me spread the word about component software architectures in web development, which are my real hobby horse these days. Follow up columns include a piece on the NetDynamics application server, building online stores, and Microsoft’s next web browser…

I had my photograph taken by ECsoft's PR company as a result as well, which was an interesting experience - lots of different poses and a manic chatty photographer...

It all seems to be going quite well. The US publishers have now approached me and have asked me to write a book on electronic commerce. If that goes well, there are another two that we might work on in the future. It’s rather flattering to be asked to do this!

Books read.

This is going to be one of those list things this month. After being ill, I’ve read so much recently that I’ve lost track of the books that have left the to-be-read bookcases… There’s actually been a lot more, but I’ve lost track…

Krazy Kat - Jay Astor

Vacuum Diagrams - Stephen Baxter [HarperCollins 1997]

The Royal Changeling - John Whitbourn [Earthlight 1998]

Children Of God - Mary Doria Russell

The Mechanical Sky - Donald Moffett [Del Rey]

To Hold Infinity - John Meany [Bantam 1998]

Good solid hard SF, with a dash of the baroque. As first novels go, this one’s excellent.

Lucifer's Dragon - John Courtenay Grimwood [NEL 1998]

The sequel to NeoAddix, but this time clearer on the alternate history background. Fun, but not the world's greatest read....

Lunatics - Bradley Denton [Bantam, 1997]

It's difficult to put a label on Bradley Denton. His first novel, Wrack and Roll was an alternate history romp, his second a peculiar tale of UFOs and urban alienation. Lunatics is different yet again, a love story of man and lunar goddess. Denton's wry observations on thirty-something life in Austin are what make this bittersweet comedy work. If only I could stop seeing Tom Hanks playing Jack...

Palestine - Joe Sacco [published in two volumes as “A Nation Occupied” and “In The Gaza Strip”, Fantagraphics 1996]

The graphic novel as journalism. Joe Sacco explores the villages and refugee camps of Palestine, and uses his powerful and stunning art to tell the story of the ordinary Palestinian folk, tortured, beaten and displaced, yet still hopeful of a return to their homes. Sacco's work is a superb example of how the comic should be used as a tool for reportage. Like Maus, Palestine forces us to confront aspects of the world we try to avoid.

Sacco interestingly disparages his own role in the reporting of the Intifada and the peace process, but by deconstructing the role of the "dispassionate observing journalist" turns what could be a self congratulatory piece into a powerful work of graphic reportage. After reading Palestine I felt that I'd been there with Sacco, and understood what life in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was like.

Mailcomms

KV:

Oakhill Road is a typical Southwest London suburban street, full of Victorian houses. What brings in the wildlife is the green corridor provided by the Waterloo to Reading line, which runs straight through to Barnes Common, and the proximity of Richmond Park - an ideal place to go parrot spotting, thanks to the sizeable breeding colony of ring-necked parakeets. One thing I've noticed about Putney being an up-and-coming affluent suburb, our local fox is looking more than a little overweight!